• 07 Mar 2013

    Scholar's Conference

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  • 31 May 2013

    Jefferson Seminar

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  • 21 Jul 2013

    Summer School

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Who We Are
The Abbeville Institute is an association of scholars in higher education devoted to a critical study of what is true and valuable in the Southern tradition. The Institute conducts seminars and conferences for college and graduate students, and guides research and publication on all aspects of the Southern tradition.

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Why We Were Founded
 
In a healthy society, education is the thoughtful enjoyment of a cultural inheritance. But American society today is in the grip of an ideological culture war. During the last thirty years, colleges and universities have come to be dominated by the ideologies of multiculturalism and political correctness.

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Our Goals?
 
The ideological culture war that has resulted in the vilification of all things Southern and the elimination of the distinctly Southern interpretation of American history and identity is not going to change overnight. Those who created it are tenured, and will dominate in higher education for at least a generation-- and even longer since they are disposed to hire and tenure only their own.

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Our Programs
 
The Institute conducts three main programs. An annual week long Summer School for college and graduate students; an annual Scholar’s Conference for academics and other thoughtful people; and Jefferson Seminars which are locally sponsored seminars of no more than 25 to explore a topic of interest to the public and to recover the Jeffesonian ideal of leaning through humane conversation.  

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  • Who We AreWho We Are
  • Why FoundedWhy Founded
  • Our GoalsOur Goals
  • Our ProgramsOur Programs
Monday, May 20, 2013

Our Programs

Our Programs
 

The Institute conducts three main programs. An annual week long Summer School for college and graduate students; an annual Scholar’s Conference for academics and other thoughtful people; and Jefferson Seminars which are locally sponsored seminars of no more than 25 to explore a topic of interest to the public and to recover the Jeffesonian ideal of leaning through humane conversation.

 



PROGRAMS. (1) Summer School: an annual summer school for undergraduate and graduate students. The summer school is held at different locations in the South. (2 ) Scholars' Conference: an annual scholar's conference where Institute faculty, and invited scholars, meet to present papers for criticism and to discuss plans for advancing the academic goals of the Institute in respect to research, publication, and teaching. (3) Jefferson Seminars: Thomas Jefferson is an icon of the Southern tradition, thoroughly rooted in his regional culture, but with a speculative mind eager to explore every area of learning. A Jefferson Seminar is usually a one day affair, designed to provide the public with an opportunity to explore serious topics in a convivial setting. Jefferson was not a great public speaker, but he was a master of the eighteenth century art of conversation. We seek to revive that tradition of conversation in the Jefferson seminars. These are arranged by local supporters and associations and are kept small, in the range of 10 to 25 participants.

Abbeville Slide Show

Featured Articles

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  • Article 3
  • Article 4
  • Article 5
“Presidential Greatness: Pierce v. Lincoln” by Marshall DeRosa
It is said that the right of secession, if conceded, makes our Government a mere rope of sand.  .  . .  better, far better, a rope of sand than the chains of iron, and shackles of steel. [US Senator Judah P. Benjamin, Louisiana, February 4, 1861]

The 2012 presidential election is an opportune time to reconsider so-called presidential leadership. This reconsideration sheds light on the predicament in which these united States find themselves.

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NOTE: Clicking the "Read More" link above leads to a "pdf" file download, which requires Adobe Acrobat. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer, you can download it free at Adobe.com .
“John C. Calhoun: Nullification, Secession, and the Constitution” by Marco Bassani
William Freehling stands fairly alone in calling Calhoun “one of the more confused political philosophers in the American tradition.”1 Indeed the opposite is true – the Carolinian is often considered brilliant but somewhat at odds with the American mainstream.

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NOTE: Clicking the "Read More" link above leads to a "pdf" file download, which requires Adobe Acrobat. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer, you can download it free at Adobe.com .
“Calhoun as Political Philosopher" by Donald W. Livingston
A century after his death in the 1950s Calhoun was selected by a Senate Committee, chaired by John Kennedy, at the top of a list of the five greatest Senators in American history. Throughout his career Calhoun exhibited the rare qualities of a statesman. More than once he abandoned his party and his own ambitions for principles and what he thought best for the Union. Professor Clyde Wilson, the foremost authority on Calhoun, has written: “John C. Calhoun was the last great American statesman.

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NOTE: Clicking the "Read More" link above leads to a "pdf" file download, which requires Adobe Acrobat. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer, you can download it free at Adobe.com .
“Jeff Davis’s Crown of Thorns” by Felicity Allen
This ironic crown, combining highest honor and degrading torture, became a premier symbol for the Passion of Christ – all that he suffered before and during his crucifixion. Like the Cross itself, however, it was made glorious by his resurrection.

At the end of the War for Southern Independence, which the South lost, the only president of the short‐lived Confederate States of America was treated like a criminal. He was clapped into solitary confinement in a military prison, at Fortress Monroe, Virginia. The discipline was so strict that Jefferson Davis and his guards (and at first two were right in the cell with him) were forbidden to speak to each other. Davis could never for a moment, even for the needs of nature, leave their presence or the small stone room.

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NOTE: Clicking the "Read More" link above leads to a "pdf" file download, which requires Adobe Acrobat. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer, you can download it free at Adobe.com .
“Republicanism and Liberty: The "Patrick Henry"/"Onslow" Debate”
by H. Lee Cheek, Sean Busick, and Carey Roberts
The fiercely contested, yet inconclusive election of 1824 set the stage for one of the great debates of American political history. According to Irving Bartlett, “the key to understanding Calhoun’s political behavior and thinking from 1825 through 1828 may be found in the peculiar conditions under which the election of 1824 occurred.”1 The same can be said of John Quincy Adams. Fellow cabinet members John Quincy Adams, who served as President Monroe’s Secretary of State, and John C. Calhoun, who served as Secretary of War, entered the fray along with Secretary of the Treasury William H. Crawford, Speaker of the House Henry Clay, and the hero of the Battle of New Orleans and newly elected senator, Andrew Jackson. Calhoun soon realized he lacked adequate support to be elected president and withdrew from the race after Pennsylvania nominated Andrew Jackson. Accepting the vice‐presidential nomination, and aligning himself with Jackson, Calhoun was elected by a large majority.

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NOTE: Clicking the "Read More" link above leads to a "pdf" file download, which requires Adobe Acrobat. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer, you can download it free at Adobe.com .

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Special Feature

"Perpetual War for Perpetual Union: Kendall and Bradford on Lincoln's Imperial Rhetoric," Daniel McCarthy, Editor, The American Conservative.

Daniel McCarthy examines the arguments of Willmore Kendall and M. E. Bradford that Lincoln introduced an ideological style of rhetoric which inclines us to think of America not as a federation of States but as a massively centralized regime dedicated to imposing abstract principles of equality on the world. To many this seems the high point of political rationality, but it is in fact irrational and the source of many illusions in domestic and foreign polity.

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